Commanded to be Workers

Yesterday we looked at Genesis 1:26 – 31 and the creation of humanity by God the Trinity to work. We were created to work. We highlighted the idea that these verses speak to the mind of God and His intentions behind creating us. God created us to work. Let’s look at this passage again. Today we see something slightly different.

Genesis 1:26-31 (HCSB)Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

So God created man in His own image;He created him in the image of God;He created them male and female.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it. I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

I placed a specific section in bold. In this God is speaking to humanity and it is in the form of a command. God not only created us to work. He also commands us to work. Working is what we were made for but not working is disobedience to God. We are supposed to work. We ought to work. We find purpose in work but we also find obedience to our creator in work. God created us to work and God commanded us to work.

I do not think it is by coincidence that the command to work is immediately followed by a description of what we shall eat. Obeying God by working is intimately connected to our ability to eat. We obey God’s command and therefore we eat. We work. We eat. Obeying God’s command to work is in relationship to eating. The Apostle Paul phrases it this way in his letter to the early church at Thessalonica

2 Thessalonians 3:10 (HCSB)In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.”

Keep in mind that this is before sin entered the world. This is in a context where work was part of a very good creation. Work was designed in the perfect creation to produce food and provide for the workers. There were no persons at this time without the ability to work. Sin had not yet corrupted work and evil had not yet damaged the potential workers. In this reality we sometimes are prevented from working due to circumstances that are a result of the fall. Some of us are unable to work. This affect of sin on work will be deeply explorer next week.

We are created to work but we are also commanded to work. Working is the reason you were made. And working allows you to live in obedience to the very commands of your creator.